Have you ever felt anxious about your job, but you don’t know why? Everything is going well, or at least according to plan, and there is nothing obvious that should be causing anxiety. Yet, when bedtime rolls around, you struggle to get to sleep, and you have a perpetual sense that you’re falling behind. Falling behind? Behind what, exactly?

A few weeks ago I had the chance to travel to LA for an interview with one of my favorite creators and entrepreneurs, Chase Jarvis. Chase is an incredible photographer, and is the co-founder of CreativeLIVE, a platform designed to help creative pros to learn new skills from the best in the business. In this interview, we cover everything from personal habits and rituals, to how to deal with creative doubt, to how to lead creative people effectively.

If you lead a team of people, you have the responsibility to keep your flame burning bright and hot. Yes, you can still do your job for a while without inspiration, but eventually your team will catch on to the fact that you’re not really smoking what you’re selling, and they’ll start to wonder whether their sacrifices are really worth it.

Because cultures are grown, you must treat yours like a garden. Just like a good gardener, you aggressively fertilize the aspects of your team’s culture that you want in abundance and diligently prune the things you want to get rid of. This requires constant attention on your part, because if you allow a few errant behaviors to slide, you will eventually find your entire garden choked with weeds.

What do it really take for teams to produce brilliant, creative work over and over? Is it just talent? Is it the result of having a vibrant, fun culture? Or, maybe it’s just sheer will and hustle? While all of those things play a part, none of them are sufficient to sustain great work over time. There are two things that are more important.

What does it take for a team to produce consistently brilliant creative work? Just talent? A fun and vibrant culture? Sheer will? Actually, in "create on demand" organizations the answer is often something else. Something surprising.

I've been looking forward to writing this post for over two years. It's with (barely contained) joy that I get to announce that my new book Herding Tigers: Be The Leader That Creative People Need is just two weeks from release.

Have you ever been at a cocktail party, had someone ask you what you do for a living, and wished you could come up with something impressive-sounding to wow them? Adam Stelztner probably never experiences that. He's an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has worked on flight missions including Galileo, Cassini, and Mars Pathfinder, and the Mars Exploration Rover project. He has a lot to say about innovation and leadership.

Having worked with and interviewed hundreds of professionals, I’ve come to believe that each person has a “sweet spot”. It’s comprised of the situations and activities where they are maximally effective, and where they create the most unique value for their effort. It’s not necessarily a specific job or task, but rather a mode they go into that separates them from the pack. It’s a unique kind of value that they become known for, and that others seek out.

GTD is a system for organizing and acting on the work that matters most. There are a lot of nuances to the system, and as a result many people get lost in the weeds and intricate details and get off track and stop utilizing it altogether. That's unfortunate, because there are many principles that can be borrowed from GTD and acted upon, even if you don't use the entire system.

I just spent years researching and writing a book about voice. Voice? Seriously? Why would I do that? Honestly, if I offered you ten potential books to read, and a book about voice was among them, I'd guess that the voice book would probably be among the least...

The ugly truth is that great work isn’t enough. No one tells you this early in your career; It’s something you learn over time. Cream doesn’t automatically rise to the top, and we don’t live in a meritocracy. If you want your idea to be heard, you have to go the extra mile to ensure that it’s framed to resonate with the right audience.

I am awash in paperbacks! My publisher just re-configured its office space, and sent me a few boxes of Die Empty and The Accidental Creative paperbacks.
Books aren’t meant to be kept in a box, they’re meant to be read, so I’m giving giving away 15 signed paperback copies of Die Empty and The Accidental Creative.

Back in April I received an e-mail from Marie Forleo and team asking if I would come to NYC to chat about Louder Than Words on an episode of MarieTV. I thought for - oh - about one second before saying "yes".

It’s noisy. Not physically noisy, but culturally noisy.
Everyone is clamoring for attention, and clanging their gongs trying to win a few seconds of your precious time. Clickbait, shock tactics, and distractions are so commonplace that they are now used even by previously “credible” institutions. It’s tempting to follow suit and fall into these tactics with your own work. Don't do it.

Don't spend your life chasing a vapor. Don't waste it bouncing from one comfortable place to another, hoping things work out in your favor. Commit to doing the difficult work of excavating, then utilizing your authentic voice. The journey is challenging and the hurdles are very real, but in the end you will point with pride to a body of work that represents you well. It begins now, in this moment.